Cork GAA Discussion Thread

First of all congrats to Grueller and Wexford. Completely worth their win. Hope you keep the momentum going through the quarter finals.

Regarding the debate, it doesn't have to be an either/or between the players or Frank Murphy.

It's clear that the structures put in place for Cork hurling have been failing for some time now, leading to the current panel of players who are not up to the requisite standard. We've been poor at minor and U21 for the last number of years. Equally as importantly, we seem to have a real problem in how we develop/keep hold of the promising players from those minor teams when they get to between those ages. Other counties like Waterford and Clare seem to have interested them better, albeit they had much better minor teams. Looking at the players who have got proper game time in the last couple of years, the only young players who have established themselves recently are Cadogan, Cormac Murphy and Pa Collins, who hasn't gotten much of a look in. That's scandalous lads. Lehane is 24 sometime this year, he's not particularly young anymore. We should be able to develop more than that. There are players we've lost like Sweetnam, Cahalane and O'Callaghan for various reasons but I'm sure we're not the only county who can say that. The current panel is reminiscent of past underage teams. Backs who aren't great In possession and don't deliver good ball and a lot of lovely, skilful forwards who struggle to win their own ball.

Of course, what do we do to rectify this problem? We build an unnecessarily large stadium with only one training pitch for a "centre of excellence". It's madness. When county board delegates try to discuss a strategic plan about underage Cork hurling they get shutdown (see the last board meeting).

Grueller mentions club hurling and schools hurling and that too is a contributing factor. The schools hurling seems to be slowly improving again but that will take time to trickle up. The standard of club hurling and the lack of bite in senior championship is very noticeable. It's been consistently mentioned here by posters. In saying that, and for the posters who say we should savage the current panel, there isn't exactly a rake of lads producing huge performances in club hurling. The panel we have is broadly the best we have.

That's one side of it and largely to do with Frank and matters external to the current panel.

Equally though, this panel have enough quality to comfortably beat Wexford as they showed last year. They didn't show up today and that's been a recurring theme of this panel for the last 3/4 years. Inconsistency. Highs (Clare last year, winning Munster the year before etc.) and bad bad lows (Wexford, Galway and Tipp in the last three years).

A lot of posters were negative coming into championship and the quiteness of this thread I think reflected a large part of that. However I don't think I was alone in not expecting the result today.

Waternut wrote: »

Add your reply here.
Blaming Frank is a complete cop out. Any time there is an issue in Cork its blame Frank. Now I'm not saying he is not some of the problem but Cork hurling has realistically been in trouble since the mid 2000's. When was the last all ireland? JBM got ye to a final in 2013 which merely papered over the fact that Cork were in serious trouble for five or six years before that. Now here is my issue with everyone blaming Frank because in my opinion it comes down to the clubs. Why are the clubs in Cork not producing Joe Deanes, Sean Og's or the likes of the O'Conner's anymore? There should be a plethora of young lads who grew up watching the likes of the above players and watching them win all irelands and wanting to follow in their footsteps. Success breeds success, but where are these young lads? Now, you can have one or you can have a hundred fields for Cork panels to train on but the making of a player, particularly in hurling, is at underage with the club. Frank may be some of the problem but ultimately the clubs have to step up, start producing and be more competitive themselves.

They didn't magically become incapable of producing players, the fact that it's a problem across the whole county implies that the problem is wth the underage structures, and therefore ultimately the county board, and therefore frank.

Simply put Frank has a stranglehold on all things Cork GAA for donkeys years

He has influenced or controlled all the major decisions involving appointment & management of teams and more importantly the funding. For an intelligient man He has not had the vision, OR THE DESIRE, to see how the game has evolved and has held Cork Back with a ruthlessly stubborn belief that he knows more than anyone else

And now we are living with the results of it.

He is a manipulative bully and loves the sound of his own voice. THose who threatened his position or authority in the past have over time been alienated from the ranks

I would think his legions of supporters aare dying off or the sickening realisation may be dawning in them he is,not the messiah after all.

But sadly I dont see it changing anytime soon.

ShamoBuc wrote: »

People on the outside simply don't get that that we don't Keep him in power he keeps himself!! He can't be fired. It's a job for life or until he decided to go himself, which will be when his number is up and not before. Farcical in the extreme but that's the way it is. There is no way he will leave of his own accord. And with the stupid cronies he has built up around him over the decades in charge , that will not change!!

Cork are the Rebels, no?

Ladies football Munster final - Cork 1-5 Kerry 0-4 HT

Mahony0509 wrote: »

They never let us down. Hope they push on and win.

home and dry with a few minutes left, 2-8 to 0-5. Kerry going 26 min of 2nd half before scoring

Footballers drew Longford away. Banana skin

True. This has all the hallmarks of that defeat to Fermanagh we had up in Croke Park a few years back.

If the attitude is right, we will beat Longford handy. If the attitude is like Kildare last year, any team can beat us.

Alan Cadogan and Aidan Walsh are back training with the footballers tonight

AnMuinteoirOg wrote: »

Alan Cadogan and Aidan Walsh are back training with the footballers tonight

Smells of pure panic to me, what does this say about our 'gameplan', do we even have one?
I wonder how this has been handled with the squad because the knock on with this is that 2 fellas listed on Saturday will now be dropped from the panel, because these 2 aren't coming back to make up numbers.

Walsh will always be a better footballer then hurler. He'll be a great addition to the squad plus cadogan brings pace. If walsh performs our midfield will wipe out Longford. But saying that 1/4 finals is as far as cork go depending on the draw